Kings Under Mountains

Подземные короли, Шахты

tactical fight for mines

2-4

30-45 min

10 min

cards (88 items)

Kings Under Mountains is a simple and complex game at the same time in which players try to gain control on mines. The gameplay is somewhat between territory conquering and card drafting. Despite the random part which takes place in all such card games this one allows player to plan his actions, and there is always a choice to help yourself or to cause damage to your opponent. Quiet simple rules that are not that easy to master. Kings Under Mountains is not only a family game but also a competition between experienced players.

Briefly about the game:

Easy rules. It won’t take much time to learn them.

Good choice to think about during the game. Random part of the game won’t interfere you to think several steps ahead.

Unit cards are not so simple as they seem. A single card has its race and a number but that’s enough to make a player think how to play this card.

Play to learn the complexity of the game. The more you play the more interesting tactical moments you’ll find.

Each card has two sides but only one of them will be used during the game. This will not only increase replayability but also allows players to play cards the most profitable side up.

Any player can increase time of the game or decrease it. Choose the one you need: more time to realize your plans or les time to interfere your rivals not to realize their plans.

Rules of the game:

Four mine cards are placed between players. These are treasures to fight for. On his turn each player plays a card from his hand and then draws a card from the deck. Seem easy as can be but that’s the trick. There are not only limitations on the zones where you can play cards but also your choice defines a lot.

Before you take a role of one king under mountain, each player chooses his own nation. These are dwarfs, orcs, goblins and giants. If there are less than four players, the rest leader cards are put back to the box.

Now place 4 cards in front of players face down. Face is the side with characters, so cards will be laying mines side up. That’s the place where you will be mining treasures.

Now place 4 cards face up. That’s the mining camp from where you will be taking workers to your hand during the game. Now begin the game!

Mining treasures requires two steps. First of all, you need to conquer the mine. Play a card from your hand on any of four mines that lie in front of all players to do it. If there is already a card on this mine, then you may place a card on this one only with the greater number. And you can play only 0 on the maximum number of 9. Miners lay on cards until their number reach the defense of the mine.

When the number of cards on any mine reaches the required quantity, all cards from this mine go to the mining camp and can be takes to the hand again. And the mine card is taken by the player whose worker card was placed on it the last. This allows to take good cards and give bad ones to your rivals.

But that’s not all. Mine cards in front of you will give you penalty points if they won’t be worked, and you will need working power for this. Captured mines are being worked just the way they were captured just before. Place a worker card on it, then place the next one with greater power, then another one, and so on until the number of cards won’t meet the numbers of workers needed. But remember, you can use only other workers cards as workers. And if an overseer is needed, then place your worker card on top by the same rules.

That’s all! The mine is not only captures, but also worked, so now if will give you victory points. Capture mines, mine them for treasures and win!

Hint number onePay attention to the mines that enter the game and their abilities. Some of them are move valuable, some are less. The numbers on cards are selected in such a way for players not only to conquer the most profitable cards or make players take «bad» cards, but to make these actions in turns.

Hint number twoAlways have a mine in front of you where you can place a card or two. It can happen so that there will be no reason to play a card to one of mines in front of all players, and you can’t skip your turn in this game. In this case you will always have a chance to place a card on your mine that should be worked.

Hint number threePlan with which cards you will be getting treasures out of conquered mines. These are mines that only you can place cards on. If you have all needed cards in your hand then decide how you will use them. Enemies won’t interfere you with this, that’s important.

Hint number fourAfter you made a turn you draw either a card from the deck not knowing what it is, or from a mining camp. In the first case you slowly move the game towards the end, in the second case you slowly extend it. Sometimes it’s better to take a card you don’t need if it makes worse to your opponent. For example, if it will end the game not allowing your rival to gain treasures from a very «tasty» mine.

Hint number fiveDo not give your opponents mines with a lot of victory points in the beginning of the game, even if 4 cards are needed to gain treasures from it, and so the player will spend 4 turns doing this. Your opponent will have plenty of time until then. But when the game is nearly to its end, it’s better to give your rival a card or two with plenty of victory points so he wouldn’t have enough time to work it and gain penalty. Give him mines with a few victory points until then to keep him busy.

Hint number sixRemember that the most dangerous card has a power of 8, and not 9. You can place card with power of 0 on the card with the power of 9, while you need to place 9 on the 8, and then place 0 on top of it. It’s much harder to get such combination. If you want to keep the situation on the game board under your control and close access to any mine, then use eights and nines. Use any cards with big power number if you don’t have any.

In the beginning we wanted to create a simple card game based on different magical schools. We won’t describe this idea thoroughly. It was not much of an idea and it resembled Magic: The Gathering a lot. But however, it should be mentioned because it was then when magical races came to the world of Kings Under Mountains. At first there were different races than the ones that are in the game now. As the players were using spell cards based on different elements these races were sylphs, water nymphs, salamanders and dwarfs. Among all there races only dwarfs came to the final version of the game. But at first they were, how to say, by-product of our magical experiment and I honestly can’t remember when they became independent race.

We guess the dwarfs became independent when we understood where rivalries between different races should take place. The choice for the place of playing events was kinda obvious. It so happened that dwarfs work in mines using picks and lanterns. At that moment the game was known as Mines in our group of authors. But what kind of game it is if there are no rivals in it? Someone had to take place abandoned by sylphs, water nymphs and salamanders. Who the first came to keep dwarfs’ company? Can’t remember exactly. As far as we can say these were giants. Some time after evil races appeared. These were orcs and goblins. As they appeared we thought about co-operative game mode (good races vs. evil races). But later while testing we had to decline this idea. But who can prevent such game mode while playing four? Just define who will be whose ally in this game.

How the game looked like when it became more like the current version? Kings Under Mountains was nearly the game that exists now but there were more mines. They were places in a 3×3 grid and there was also an element of position fight like tic-tac-toe. But such a great number of mines flickered before our eyes so we decided to make a 2×2 grid of mines and remove position fight. Dwarfs and their enemies had lotsa problems without these rules. And we had them too while working on this game.

For example, how to define that someone occupied the mine? This kinda easy question was solved by itself. We just created upper limiter for each mine which defined the maximum number of cards which could be put on it. Then the second question appeared: what should be done to the conquered mine? It was not very interesting if the fight for the mine ended when the mine was conquered. So we decided that the mine should be worked. But how? And that’s the good one. If any decided to work the mine then who knows what (or whom) will the dwarfs encounter? So we decided that different races could be used as slaves. But slaves will need slave-driver. And new part of the game filled its place as if it was designed for it.

So that’s the whole story. The work about minor details took place. We wrote a rhyme about this game which can be found in the rules (note: this rhyme was written only in Russian and wasn’t translated into other languages yet). While testing we determined some game nuances thanks to leading boardgamers of our country and our publisher.

Each player is a king for he rules his race. So we completely agree with the publisher that the name Kings Under Mountains reflects the heart of the game the most.

Questions and answers:

What will happen if the last card put on the mine is a dwarf card but there is no dwarf king among players?The mine will be taken by the player who put his card.

In which order are the cards put to the mine camp? For example, these cards lay on the mine in this order: orc with power of 2, goblin with power of 3 and goblin with power of 7.Units will be placed in reverse order. First of all the top card is put to the camp and that’s the goblin card with power of 7. The goblin with power of 3 will be put on it. The last card put to the camp will be orc card but it will be placed to orc discard pile.

Played unit cards can be taken back to hand. This means that the game will never end if players will always take cards from the camp. Right?No, that’s impossible. Only the cards that were used to conquer mine are put to camp. The cards that were used to develop mine are discarded and won’t be used in the game again.